GeorgeNicolasEl-Hage.com
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  • Professional Profile
    • Who is George Nicolas El-Hage
  • Publications
    • "Aqlam Muhajirah" The voice of the New Pen League (NPL)
    • Literary Criticism >
      • Books (English) >
        • A Labor of Love: Our Lebanon Family Home Renovation Project
        • Gibran Kahlil Gibran: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
        • Eliya Abu Madi: The Distinguished Poet of al-Rabita al-Qalamiya
        • A Brief History of Arabic Literature: Volume One: Pre-Islamic to the Abbaasid Age
        • A Brief History of Arabic Literature: Volume Two: Andalusia to the Modern Age
        • William Blake and Kahlil Gibran: Poets of Prophetic Vision
        • Gibran Kahlil Gibran: The Man Versus the Legend
        • Essays on Literature and Language
        • Ibn al-Farid's "Khamriyya" ("Ode on Wine")
        • Nizar Qabbani: Women in My Poetry and in My Life
        • Nizar Qabbani: My Story with Poetry - "An Autobiography"
        • Nizar Qabbani: Journal of An Indifferent Woman
        • Ghada al-Samman's Beirut '75: An Autobiographical Interpretation
        • English Translation of Selected Letters of Badr Shakir al-Sayyab
        • Khalil Hawi: Letters of Love and Life
        • Immortal Quotes from Ameen al-Rihani’s Masterpiece The Book of Khalid
        • Ameen al-Rihani: Eastern and Western Figures
        • Ameen al-Rihani’s The Register of Repentance: Four Short Stories and a Play
        • Selected Letters of Ameen al-Rihani: Translated with an Introduction and Notes
        • Ameen al-Rihani: You...The Poets
        • Ameen al-Rihani: My Story with May
        • Ameen al-Rihani: The Muleteer and the Priest
      • Books (Arabic) >
        • al-Zajal al-Lubnani wa Zaghloul al-Damour fi Beit Meri: (Lebanese Zajal and Zaghloul al-Damour in Beit Meri)
        • Madkhal ila-l-'alam al-shi 'ri 'inda Khalil Hawi usluban wa madmunan: (An Introduction to the Poetic Universe of Khalil Hawi)
        • al-Nabi bayna 'adu al-Masih wa al-Insan al-Ilah
        • Sahifat "al-Risala" al-Lubnaniya al-Mahjariya: (The "al-Risala" Newspaper and the Lebanese Press in Diaspora)
        • Gibran Kahlil Gibran wa William Blake: Sha'ira al-Ru'ya: (Gibran Kahlil Gibran and William Blake: Poets of Prophetic Vision)
        • The Trilogy of Heroism, Redemption, and Triumph: The Press in Diaspora, Khalil Hawi, Zaghloul al-Damour
    • Textbooks & Articles on Teaching & Learning Arabic >
      • marHaba III: A Course in Levantine & Modern Standard Arabic (LMSA) >
        • marHaba III: PART ONE Audio Files
        • marHaba III: PART TWO Audio Files
        • marHaba III: PART FOUR Audio Files
      • marHaba II: A Course in Levantine Arabic - Lebanese Dialect - Intermediate Level >
        • A Companion Book to marHaba II: English Translation & Transliteration of All Lessons in marHaba II
      • marHaba: A Course in Levantine Arabic - Lebanese Dialect >
        • marHaba: Practice Workbooks
      • MABROUK: A Course in Modern Standard Arabic (Elementary & Intermediate Levels) >
        • Study Guide: MABROUK
      • The Story of Sami and Warda
    • Lebanese Nursery Rhymes
    • Books (Poetry in English/Arabic) >
      • Love Surpassed: A Book of Poetry
      • Letters to My Son: An Immigrant's Saga
      • Lebanese Hymns of Love and War
    • Books (Poetry in Arabic) >
      • Love Poems from Beirut
      • Awdat al-Faris wa Qiyamat al-Madina
      • al-Ghurba wa Mawasim al-Dhalam
      • Law Kunti Li
      • Qasa’id Bila Tarikh (Undated Poems) >
        • Mikhail Naimy: Fathers and Sons - A Play in Four Acts
      • Maw’id wa-liqa’
      • anti wal atfaalu fi Beirut: You and the Children in Beirut
      • You and the Children in Beirut
    • Poems (English) >
      • To Mary Ann with Love: A Book of Poetry
      • Birth of a Princess
      • Forty Years of Bliss
      • Thinking of You
      • You are My Christmas
      • A Poem for Mother's Day
      • To Mary Ann on Her Birthday
    • Poems (Arabic) >
      • Arabic Poems in MSA >
        • Beirut Speaks - song
        • A Tribute to Beirut
        • Lubnaniyat
        • The Garden of Visions
        • Najwa
        • Kunna ibtada’na
      • Arabic Poems in Lebanese Dialect >
        • Hilwit libnan
    • My Poetry (Translated from Arabic to English) >
      • Beirut Speaks
      • The Book of Death, #28
      • Journey of Illusion
      • Letter to a Country With No Frontier
      • A Letter to the Children of Qana
      • My People
      • You, Beirut and the Children
      • Introduction to If You Were Mine
      • Sufiya: A Mystical Poem
      • Surprise Attack
      • Exile
      • Chariot of Light
    • My Translations of Other Poets'/Writers' Works >
      • May Ziyadeh: The Return of the Wave
      • Said Akl: When Lebanon Speaks
      • Ameen Albert Rihani: A Train and No Station
      • Mikhail Naimy: Once Upon A Time
      • Mikhail Naimy: Abu Batta and Other Stories
      • Mikhail Naimy: Fathers and Sons - A Play in Four Acts
      • Mikhail Naimy: Inspired by Christ
      • Mikhail Naimy: Sab‘un (Seventy) An Autobiography
      • Mikhail Naimy: al-Ghirbal (The Sieve): Selections Translated into English with an Introduction
      • Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad: A Loaf of Bread (al-Raghif)
      • Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad: The Lame Boy and Other Stories
      • Maroun Abboud: Faces and Stories
      • Maroun Abboud: The Red Prince - A Lebanese Tale
      • Maroun Abboud: Tales from the Village
      • al-Rihaniyyat
      • Munajayat Al-Sab‘in
      • Mahmud Darwish’s poem, “Antithesis”
      • ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati’s: The Byzantine Poems of Abu Firas
      • Gibran’s Unpublished Letters to Archbishop Antonious Bashir
    • Personal Reflections >
      • First Impressions of Lebanon in June 2013
      • The Collapse of a Tradition
  • Professional Activities
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    • Poetry Readings
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A Letter to the Children of Qana

[Note:  The Lebanese town of Qana, famed for the miracle of water into wine, has also seen the blood of its children flow during two Israeli strikes 

(April 18, 1996 and July 30, 2006).]

My peace to you.

Oh, our beloved innocents
Oh, our meek children
Oh, smile of the
heavens, fruit of our benevolent land
Oh, hope of the prosperous future.

You are the salt of the earth
You are the gods of the coming era
And the
zenith of beauty, love, and freedom in this world.


Oh sacrificial lamb of the one God
We have killed you
We have slain
you
They have killed you
They have slain you


We veiled ourselves in nationalism
They hid themselves behind
self-defense.
We called an emergency session of the Security Council,

They met…and their words were unalterably wooden,
Soiled, lifeless,
unrepentant and hopeless.


We sprinkled you with flowers
And wiped your faces with the covers of the
holy books.
Alas, the Torah did not inspire us
Nor did the Gospel save
us or the Qur’an console us.


All of us,
Both sides of the border,
We are all Cain
We are all
Yazid
We are all Judas.
We are all vampires and murderers
And we are
all responsible for your sacred blood and your innocent souls.


Where is your laughter?
Where are your small fingers and light footed
steps?
Your faces, radiating with Life, Joy, and Optimism?


You fled from the bombs of hatred
You sought refuge in a building
believing it a haven and a shelter
You were trembling with fear
And
terror was a devil drawn upon your spring faces
Assassinating the dawn in
your eyes,
Spreading the twilight over your olive-skinned brow.
You
surrendered to a fitful slumber,
To a nightmare without dreams…without
tomorrow.
This was your final rest.


The shadow of death startled you,
Cleaving your tender bodies,

Harvesting the roses and lilies of your coming years,
Transforming your
abundance to drought,
And your fertility to wasteland,
And the light in
your eyes to ashes,
And the warmth of your smile to frost.
It abandoned
you…putrid corpses.


You were sheaves of wheat and fields of incense
And the valleys of
fragrance and longing.


Oh, our little ones
Branches of the cedar tree
Pillars of Baalbek

Snow of Mount Sannin.


We shall not celebrate the wedding of Qana after today.
We shall not
drink of the sacred wine.
We shall not be visited by the Lord, whose time is
not yet come.
From this day hence, the wine is blood and the wedding a
funeral,
And the Lord will not visit.


I bow before your meekness.
I kiss your noble foreheads and kneel before
your holy feet
I seek the blessings of your hallowed tears.
And I
lament.


I bestow upon you the Peace of Jerusalem and the Peace of Mecca
I
apologize to you on behalf of the People of Moses,
The People of Jesus,

And the People of Mohammed.


You are the prophets
You are the messengers
You are the promise

You are the truth
You are the goodness
You are the beauty
You are
the resurrection
You are the hope


Forgive us, forgive us
Pardon us on the day we meet in the world to
come.


I beseech you,
Do not wear our skin,
Or do as we have done,
Or
speak as we have spoken.
For we have not been worthy of your presence among
us.


You were the best gift the heavens ever brought forth.

[Written July 29, 2006.  Translated from the original Arabic by George El-Hage with special thanks to the contribution of the Intermediate Arabic class (SILP) 2006 at MIIS.]



 
  
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